


A Thousand Miles Down And A Thousand To Go

by astridsdream



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Descriptions of Pain, Gen, Redemption, based on actual events, but it really happened on the screen, i mean events in the game which only happened in the most tenuous of senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astridsdream/pseuds/astridsdream
Summary: When everyone else is too shocked to move, Jaylen Hotdogfingers shoves everyone onto the field and takes the mound.CW: descriptions of pain, mild swears
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	A Thousand Miles Down And A Thousand To Go

The day was warm and sunny with a hint of reverb, and blaseball players from every league and division gathered in the side parking lot of Choux Stadium, ready to continue their tradition of welcoming game 5 of the Internet Series of Blaseball with a potluck. It was a time for former Spies to check in with their handlers, for Lovers to catch up with old flames, and for the Millennials to set their phones aside, just for a while.

Jaylen Hotdogfingers leaned against the entrance to Choux Stadium, and watched the party unfold.

The first time she’d heard about the tradition, two years ago, she’d been excited for it. She’d been gone so long, after all, and this would be a chance to reconnect with her friends on other teams. Maybe even explain what had happened, what was still happening.

Jaylen sighed and sipped her Dr. Plepper.

No one had wanted her there. Of course not. On the one hand, Jaylen knew it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t asked for the Debt, and she hated the way it clawed up her arm and _pulled_ , sending her pitches into the batters instead of over the plate.

On the other hand, they were still her pitches. Scorpler. Cookbook. Gloom. Monreal. And all the rest. Jaylen carried their names like anchors. If it had been one of her close friends who had been incinerated, she wouldn’t have wanted to see the pitcher responsible, either.

Not that she had any close friends anymore.

So Jaylen watched, from a distance, where her presence wouldn’t upset anyone. She checked her pulse occasionally, more out of habit than anything else. And when the party wound down and the burlier players started rolling the shelled players over to the stadium, she quietly slipped away and headed down to the dugout.

Cornelius Games was pitching today, so Jaylen hung out at the end of the bench, as far away from everyone else as she could be while still being there and supporting the team. Even if no one had invited her on any heists yet, she still wore the uniform and she still showed up for every game. Supporting the team was important to Jaylen.

But so was not hurting anyone any more than she already had. So she kept to herself, at the end of the bench, and mostly just watched the game, and listened to her teammates talk.

Once the Crabs took an early lead, ascension was on everyone’s minds.

“Oi!” said Trololol. “Wotcha think about dis ‘ere ascension binnis, aye?”

“Hardly a thing to be scared of, darling,” said Richardson, hugging his husband. “I’m always ready to move up in the world. Right love?”

“Head in the game, honey,” said Cornelius, staring at a clipboard and gently removing Richardson’s hands off his chest. “Head in the game.”

“Will it be scary?” asked Alstott, ten years old today, youngest player on the team.

“Messy,” said Hamburger, wiping a smear of blood off his face. “We’ll smash up, right? But we’ll smash into the ceiling! And just keep smashing, grinding into the clouds, until we’re all—“

“Hey,” said Jaylen, getting up and moving towards the group. “Stop scaring the kid.”

Suddenly Esme was there, two inches from Jaylen’s nose.

“Literally,” said Esme, “no one asked you.” Her voice could have frozen the Hellmouth.

“I was just trying—“

“No. One. Asked. You.”

Jaylen pinched her mouth shut and looked away. “Sorry,” she said, and raised her hands, and walked back to her place on the bench. “Sorry,” she said, and sat down with a sigh, and stared at the ground.

“… little harsh?” growled Franklin.

“Twelve players are _dead_ , Howell. And it’s *her* fault.”

 _I never wanted to come back!_ Jaylen wanted to scream, again, for the thousandth time. _I never asked for this!_

Instead she rested her arms on her knees, and closed her eyes, and waited for her teammates to head back to the field.

The game went quick. Crabs held their lead, four to two, and then Jaylen looked at the scoreboard and was surprised to see it was the bottom of the ninth. Credit to the fans, though, they never stopped cheering and chanting.

Then Alstott hit a single with no outs, and Haley drew the walk, and then Trololol was at the plate, representing the winning run.

Jaylen stood up on her end of the bench and leaned on the railing, automatically grabbing her wrist and checking her pulse. Still alive.

“Oi!” Trololol shouted as she settled into her stance and her chatter. “Come on, ya numpty! Come on ya cloppole, frow one at me, aye?”

Ball one.

“Well ‘at was a damp squib, weren’t it? Come on then, ya pillock!”

Ball two.

“Anovva naff ball! Oi, y’not even troyin’ now, aincha! Ya cack-handed—“

Strike one.

“Ohhhhohohohoh! Awroit, awroit, well let’s not botch this up, ‘ere, aye?”

The next pitch was a heater right across the plate and Trololol somehow managed to stop talking long enough to hit it out of the ball park.

The stadium exploded in noise and Jaylen screamed with the rest of them, down at her end of the bench. They’d done it! Shoe Thieves for the ultimate heist, stealing victory and ascension from the Crabs! “WHOSE KICKS! OUR KICKS!” echoed off the patisserie/blaseball stadium in waves, chased around by stomps and claps and joyous hollering. Trololol came back and was surrounded by her teammates giving her high fives and pounding her back. Jaylen blinked and Woodsman was up at bat, ready to finish out the inning, but it didn’t matter. The Crabs were shamed, the Thieves had won, and blaseball would not ascend today.

Jaylen sat down, grinning from ear to ear, watching her teammates celebrate their win. Woodman and Franklin finished their at-bats quickly, returning to the dugout and joining in the celebration.

“Whose kicks?” shouted Cornelius.

“OUR KICKS!” Jaylen and the others responded.

“Whose kicks?”

“OUR KICKS!”

And then Esme was out, and the game was over, and the Shoe Thieves had won, and the sky suddenly went black.

In the abrupt darkness, the speakers crackled to life. “EMERGENCY ALERT” spoke a distorted voice.

Jaylen’s heart pounded ( _darkness and pressure and crushing from all sides_ ) and her fingers wrapped around her wrist. Still alive. Still alive.

“INCOMING,” said the voice, just as the stadium lights flared to life.

“What does *that* mean?” asked Haley.

“SEEK SHELTER.”

Everyone started talking at once. “Seek shelter?” “What the hell?” “Cornelius what—“ “Just stay calm—“

-I AM HERE-

It was a booming deep bass voice, something Jaylen felt reverberating in her chest more than heard.

-AND YOU ARE OUT-

Jaylen stood up on the bench and gaped as the enormous glowing brown visage of the Peanut descended from the heavens. “It’s the Peanut!” she shouted to the others.

-COME TO ME MY PODS-

Jaylen was barely aware of the other players crowding on the bench beside her, staring in shock as Peanutiel Duffy spread his impossible wings and flew to the field. Peanut Bong and Peanut Holloway followed, floating beside Duffy, all held in an effervescent glow.

“Wh-what’s happening?” asked Alstott, her young voice trembling with fear.

“Not ascension, that’s for damn sure,” growled Franklin, lifting Alstott up so she could see.

“I knew it, I knew it, I _knew_ it!” muttered Haley, his hands fumbling around his Peanut Defamation League medallion.

-HEAVEN WILL TREMBLE BEFORE YOU-

There was a screaming from somewhere in the stands and yelps of surprise from the Crabs dugout, as every enormous peanut shell encasing a player floated out to the field.

-YOU THINK YOU ARE SO TOUGH?-

The nine shells floated in a circle around the three unshelled players, about fifteen feet off the ground, while the glowing Peanut loomed overhead, casting an unearthly haze down upon its summoned players.

-YOU THINK YOU HAVE POWER?-

The three players not encased in shells began gently descending towards the field.

-WE WILL SEE-

Bong and Holloway landed gracefully, identically, arms spread wide, and gazed out on the field with identical expressions of blank rapture, while Duffy hovered behind them, all six wings flapping lazily.

-TIME TO TEACH YOU SOME-

Without warning, the shelled players hurtled towards the ground.

-DISCIPLINE-

Before anyone could scream at the impending carnage, the shells slammed into the ground and exploded. The players that had been trapped inside, Quitter, Pothos, Silk, _Telephone_ , all of them stood up, unharmed, resplendent in red pin-stripes.

Each was wearing a bright red hat emblazoned with a soft brown peanut.

Jaylen felt a familiar echo as a ripple spread through reality. She looked up at the scoreboard and found it changed; now it read “Charleston Shoe Thieves” vs “THE SHELLED ONE’S PODS”, and instead of tracking runs and innings, there were just two enormous numbers, one for each team, too huge to comprehend, labeled “Team Spirit”.

She looked back at the PODS, at the people who had until recently been fellow blaseball players. Each was wrapped in a harsh red haze, and each stood too still on the field. Then, as one, they turned and walked, in lockstep, in too-perfect unison, over to the visiting team dugout.

 _They’re trapped,_ thought Jaylen. _They can’t control this, any more than I can._

Memories of the Trench assailed her ( _so dark and deep and so wet and_ ) she let go of the railing and fumbled around her wrist, panicking, until she felt the same, steady pulse. Still alive.

Still alive.

Then the speakers crackled to life.

“Play ball!”

Jaylen was the first of the Thieves to move. She looked around the dugout, but everyone else was still in shock, staring at the field, at the sky, at the looming Peanut.

“Come on!” she shouted. Her voice cut through the hollow silence like a gunblade bat. “You heard the announcer. Time to play ball!” She looked at Briggs, but he had a hand to his mouth and couldn’t seem to look away from the sky. So she grabbed a ball and started shoving players out onto the field. “Come ON!”

The Shoe Thieves stumbled their way out of the dugout, but Jaylen could see they needed something. She looked at Esme, who always had a good word for everyone but her, but she was as staggered as the rest. Cornelius was back in the dugout, probably icing his arm from the previous game.

Fine. If no one else would give them a pep talk, then she would. Maybe they’d be motivated to play just to spite her. Whatever, as long as they _played._

As the Thieves made their way to their positions, Jaylen stuffed the ball in her glove and stormed out to the mound. She picked up a resin bag, then turned to face her teammates on the field.

“I know we all want to get our trophy and go home,” she said. “I know this isn’t what we signed up for. And, shit, I…” she dropped her head, but made herself look back at her teammates. “I know I’m not the one you want up here with you. But I’ve been to the other side. I’ve seen it. You all,” she turned to the fans in the stadium, “brought me back. And it’s you all,” she turned back the field, and gestured up at the Party Time section, “who have paid the price.”

She swallowed. “I know who I have hurt. I know what this has cost.” She clenched the resin bag in her hand. “And I will be DAMNED if I let that cost be for nothing! I am not gonna let THAT THING” she shoved one hotdog finger at the glowing Peanut, “be the one to take me down. The price has been paid, and I am here, now, with you. The question is,” she paused a moment, and looked around the field. “The question is, are you here with me?”

A ragged cheer rose up from the field.

Oh stars, they were with her. “Don’t tell me, tell that!” Jaylen jabbed a finger at the sky again. “WHOSE KICKS?”

“OUR KICKS!” answered her teammates.

“WHOSE KICKS?”

“OUR KICKS!” answered the players, the fans, the entire stadium.

-YOU ARE NOTHING-

The Peanut’s voice rolled out like a crushing wave, drowning out everyone, drowning out their very thoughts. Jaylen flung the bag down on the mound and gripped the ball. “We’ll see about that, you oversized legume,” she muttered, and turned to stare at Peanut Bong, waiting, glassy-eyed and blank, at home plate.

Jaylen wound up, kicked, and threw the first pitch in the strangest game of blaseball anyone had ever seen.

The weather shifted without warning, constantly. One moment birds would fill the skies, the next moment they would be washed away in waves of harsh noise, and the next after that the sky would fill with peanuts. Every play shifted the numbers on the scoreboard, and always downward. Worse, everyone finally counted up the digits and saw that the Shoe Thieves’ number was in the tens of thousands, while the PODS number was in the tens of _millions._

There was no possible way to win.

But Jaylen kept trying. Whenever they changed sides (they followed the PODS players lead there, because nothing was being tracked, not outs or runs or anything), Jaylen took a moment to speak to her teammates.

“We can do this,” she told them in the first.

“We have to keep trying,” she told them in the second.

But when Jaylen faced down Jessica Telephone (her eyes glowed, her expression was only a slight smirk, like this was a game, like this was FUNNY) and the Peanut’s voice rolled over the field,

-RING RING-

she nearly lost it. _That’s not yours!_ she wanted to scream. _That’s not your player and that’s not your chant!_

Jessica, or the Peanut, seemed to hear her anyway, and after just three pitches, she stepped out of the batter’s box and walked out to take her place on the field.

Jaylen stared at her, certain this was some kind of awful trick, because at least one of those had been called a ball, but no, the other PODS walked out of the dugout like well-ordered zombies. Finally Alstott came over to tug Jaylen back to the dugout.

“We can’t do this,” rumbled Franklin once they were back.

“We can,” said Jaylen. “We just gotta—“

“No, we can’t,” said Franklin. His voice was calm and even. “The Pods have over a thousand times more points than us. We could hit ten home runs in a row and they would never react.”

“But us, on the other hand,” started Esme.

“Strike one, swinging,” interrupted the announcer, and all the players winced.

It was true. Every time they took a strike, or hit the ball into an out, or literally any other part of the stupid game, their score going down wasn’t the only thing that happened. They felt it, a stabbing drain on their energy, a bruise on their soul. It was exhausting to be out there in it.

“He’s right, Jaylen,” said Esme. “We can’t win.”

-SURRENDER-

Franklin buried his head in his hands. “Maybe we _should_ surrender. Get it over with.”

“No!” Jaylen rounded on them, and everyone stared at her. “Since when do we give up on our fellow blaseball players? Where’s your splortsmanship?”

Everyone stared at her.

“Come on! You all didn’t give up when the Debt made me start beaning players left and right, did you? You can see the PODS are trapped, right? We give up, we can’t get them back. We keep playing, maybe we have a chance.”

Esme snorted. “You really think that THING is just gonna hand them back to us? Runs aren’t even being tracked. How are we supposed to win back the PODS?”

Jaylen leaned over, got right up in Esme’s face. “First of all, I don’t give two shits in the Hellmouth what that THING thinks. We’re not playing for IT. We’re playing for us, and we’re playing for our friends.” She stood back up and faced the team. “Second, no, I don’t think it’ll give ‘em back to us.” A sudden idea struck her, and she grinned. “I think we’re the Charleston Shoe Thieves, and if the Peanut doesn’t give us our our friends back, well, we’re just gonna have to _steal_ them.”

Alstott and Haley and a few others perked up at that.

“Come on! You wouldn’t surrender just because some cop was chasing you, right?”

“RIGHT!” shouted Alstott, and Haley, and a few others.

“So we’re going to play the hell out of this game, right?”

“RIGHT!” shouted most of the Thieves. Esme still looked away, ignoring her, but Jaylen ignored her right back.

“You got me back,” Jaylen said to the rest of the team, “and we’re going to get them back. WHOSE KICKS?”

“OUR KICKS!”

-I AM GETTING BORED-

“No one asked you, you big bully!” shouted Alstott, and everyone laughed, actually everyone, and went back to their usual dugout banter. Jaylen watched for a moment, then went back to her usual spot at the end of the bench, furthest away from everyone.

Cornelius came over and patted her shoulder. “Nice work, Hotdogfingers.”

“Just trying to keep spirits up, coach.”

“You’re doing better than I can, at the moment,” he said. “Keep it up.”

“Yes sir.”

The Thieves went down without a fuss, and they streamed out to take the field again. As Jaylen walked to the mound, she felt the Debt weighing on her. It was like vice gripping her throwing arm, cold and heartless. _Beaning players is unsplortsmanlike conduct,_ she told herself firmly. _We can’t afford the hit to our Team Spirit._

But the Debt could not be delayed long. It gripped her arm, wrenched it, and the ball hit Quitter hard in the shoulder.

Quitter shimmered briefly, blurring a bit as dozens of Quitter copies vibrated out from their body then coalesced back in. They dropped their bat and calmly walked to first base, still caught in that red haze. Jaylen and the other Shoe Thieves staggered, wracked with pain. Somehow Jaylen managed to stay upright, sheer stupid stubbornness, and glared up at the ominous Peanut, too exhausted to scream.

-WHERE IS YOUR SPIRIT-

_You’re the god here, you tell us._

-HERE-

-HAVE SOME OF MINE-

Jaylen gasped as new energy surged through her body, painfully tingly, like pins and needles but bigger, and all over. She groaned and stood up straight. Quitter had their eyes closed, but their face was still blank, still expressionless. Jaylen looked up at the scoreboard and her eyes went wide.

-I AM BENEVOLENT-

The Team Spirit for THE SHELLED ONE’S PODS plummeted, dropping to just under six million, while the Team Spirit for the Shoe Thieves shot up, to a little over twenty-three million.

For just a moment, Jaylen felt a brief surge of hope. Maybe they could win this after all.

-I GIVE LIFE-

Right on cue, the weather shifted again, and peanuts swirled across the field.

Quitter opened their eyes again, and something was different. Jaylen gripped the ball and looked at home plate, where Francisca Sasquatch was stepping up to the plate. Something was different with her, too, but Jaylen couldn’t put her finger on it.

-NOW WATCH-

She shook it off. The Debt no longer weighed on her, so Jaylen focused on throwing strikes.

-WITNESS TRUE POWER-

Suddenly Sasquatch’s mouth opened in a hideous grin, the first real expression any of these eerie PODS players had shown. Quitter, on first, laughed abruptly, startling Jaylen into throwing the next pitch badly, and Sasquatch hit it through the gap for a single.

A wave of agony, like the pins and needles but so, so much worse, crashed through Jaylen. Someone in the dugout screamed.

And the PODS laughed.

Jaylen looked up at the scoreboard. That one hit took over a million points off their Team Spirit, way more than singles had before. She looked at Sasquatch, on first.

“The faster you give up,” Sasquatch chortled, “the faster this is over.”

Jaylen looked over at home plate, where Patel Beyonce was stepping up. Their grin spread all over their face too, but all three of their eyes were cruel and hard.

For the first time since this awful game started, Jaylen started to despair.

The dugout was quiet.

Jaylen sat alone again, on the bench, her arms resting on her knees, her head down, her eyes closed. Every sound from the field brought waves of pain, washing over and through her, one after the other, until they all blended together in a haze of misery so continuous it was almost, but not quite, ignorable. She wrapped her fingers around her wrist and was vaguely surprised to discover that her pulse still beat steadily.

-BOW BEFORE MY PODS-

She had no words left for her teammates, no messages of hope, or determination, or even sheer stubbornness. It was all she could do to keep herself upright, to hold it together long enough for one more inning, one more out, one more strike.

Fortunately, the Peanut kept talking, and its terrible voice cut through the haze of pain to inject sheer spite directly into Jaylen’s still-beating heart.

-JUST BEND THE KNEE-

“Never.”

Jaylen didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until her teammates answered.

“Never!” said Franklin.

“Never,” whispered Esme.

Jaylen turned and saw Esme sitting there beside her, looking as spent as Jaylen felt. Huh.

Blood Hamburger stumbled down the dugout steps. “Struck out,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Come here,” said Jaylen.

She gathered her teammates around her in a rough circle and put her arm in the middle. The other Shoe Thieves put their hands on top of hers.

“Never bend the knee,” said Jaylen. “Whose kicks?”

“Our kicks!” They limply raised their arms in the air and stumbled out to the field.

York Silk was up first for the PODS.

-MY DORK-

_Shut up, you obnoxious allergen._

Silk grounded out quickly.

And Telephone was up.

-SURRENDER-

_Never._

Jaylen looked at the scoreboard. The teams were close, PODS ahead by about a million Team Spirit. But the Shoe Thieves still had over five million Team Spirit. Maybe… maybe they could do this.

Jaylen looked back at Jessica Telephone.

The batter’s hair was perfectly styled, pulled back in her signature ponytail, which was threaded through the back of her stark red ballcap. The Dial Tone rested gently on her shoulder. She smirked at Jaylen, exuding a condescending confidence that made Jaylen’s fingers itch. Time to get this over with.

Jaylen wound up,

kicked,

threw,

Jessica swung the Dial Tone,

CRACK!

the ball flew,

and flew,

into the stands,

and Jaylen screamed as a thousand knives dug into her, carved her up into a thousand pieces, tore her into shreds,

-RING RING-

Jaylen collapsed, unconscious, on the pitcher’s mound.

The first thought that filtered into her head was that she was not dead again. The first emotion was a wave of relief and gratitude so intense she nearly tasted it. She reached for her wrist and found her pulse, steady as ever. Still alive.

She tried to express her relief, but all that came out was, “nngh.”

“Jaylen?”

Haley? With effort, Jaylen opened her eyes.

She was in her bed at Choux Stadium. The only solo room in the entire clubhouse, because no one wanted to room with her. She’d accepted that exclusion quietly, as her due.

“Yeah, she’s awake.”

Haley came into view and smiled. “Hey champ.”

Champ? “Hey,” Jaylen croaked.

“You okay with some people coming by?” they asked. “Everyone was real worried about you.”

Jaylen understood the words, but they refused to resolve into sense. Players? Worried about her? Since when? She gave a weak thumbs-up. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck, but people being worried about her was so new, she just had to see it.

“Can I get you something? Fruit punch? Gatorade? McDowell Mason suggested Baja Blast, but I didn’t think—“

“Water,” Jaylen managed to croak out.

“Water! Yeah! On it!” Haley fumbled around and produced a water bottle with a straw. “Here ya go.” Jaylen lifted her head and took a few sips, then collapsed back down on her pillow.

“Knock knock.”

Esme??

Her door creaked open and a cloud of smoke swirled into the room, followed by footsteps coming over to her bed. “Hey Jaylen,” said Esme Ramsey.

“Didn’t expect you.”

Esme flushed and looked away. “Yeah, well, Sato wanted to check on you and—“

The smoke suddenly thickened around Esme for a moment, then thinned back up to the ceiling.

“And…” Esme sighed. “I’m sorry I was awful to you. I… I was really mad, and—“

“Hey.” Jaylen coughed, and took another sip of water. “You had every right. I hurt people.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t pick that,” said Esme. “You said it, and I didn’t listen, and I’m sorry.” She turned back to Jaylen. “Okay?”

Jaylen shrugged. “Okay.”

“Besides,” Esme continued, “you saved us out there.”

“Hello darlings! I heard the hero is awake?”

Richardson Games came swanning into view, impeccably dressed as ever, and Jaylen couldn’t help but smile. “Hey,” she murmured.

“You were amazing, truly.” He looked her over with a critical eye. “Can we help you sit up, perhaps?”

“Sure.”

“Haley, some more pillows, please?”

“I’ll help,” said Esme, and the two left to fetch more pillows.

Jaylen looked up at Richardson. “What happened?”

“Oh stars, where to begin?” He sat down heavily on a stool next to the bed. “Well, after we all collapsed, the Peanut taunted us a bit more, said something about—“

“Rescuing our friends,” rumbled a familiar voice. Jaylen smiled as Howell Franklin stepped into view, in human form, for once. “You were right, Jaylen. The Peanut took them, but we can steal them back.”

“Oh yes, that’s it,” said Richardson. “And then that squid thing showed up—“

“The Monitor?” Jaylen felt the bottom of her stomach drop out and hit her feet. “The Monitor showed up?”

“Yeah, too late to do anything,” said Esme as she and Haley came back, arms filled with pillows.

“Oh, thank you so much, darlings,” said Richardson. “Come on, let’s get Jaylen sat up.”

It took a bit of doing, and Jaylen helped as much as she could, but her thoughts were reeling. The Monitor. Was there. Just… just _there_.

( _deep in the Trench, drifting, and, then, slimy skin under her hand—_ )

“Well, obviously, too late to do anything.” Richardson’s voice interrupted her thoughts, snapping her out of the ashen past. “But it said something about calling it next time.”

“Could’ve left us a phone number at least,” said Snyder as he walked in. “Hey Jaylen. You’re looking better.”

Richardson glanced around, then smiled. “It’s good to see you upright again, Jaylen. You were the last of us to wake up.” He patted her on the leg, then stood. “Buuuuuuut it’s getting a bit crowded in here, and I told Cornelius I’d meet him for some light burglary over lunch. Ta!” He strode out of the room, waving at everyone as he did so.

“Gunther and Cornelius send their regards,” said Snyder. “We’re looking forward to having you back in the rotation again.”

Jaylen smiled, and sipped her water. “Sorry I took your game, there.”

“What, against the Pods?” He waved both his hands in front of him frantically. “Good night! There was no way I could take them! Way better you than me! Honestly, I should be thanking you!”

Jaylen chuckled. “No hard feelings?”

“Good GRAVY no.”

“Then maybe you owe her one,” said Wanderlust as she strode in, carrying a tray of cupcakes.

“Definitely,” said Snyder. “I definitely owe you one, Jaylen.”

Everyone laughed and Wanderlust handed out cupcakes and Jaylen had to fight back tears. She was the one who owed everyone more than she could possibly repay. No one had ever owed her _anything._

“Hey, the hero’s awake!” Blood Hamburger came oozing in.

“And Wanderlust made cupcakes!” said Haley, and everyone laughed.

Wanderlust brought the tray of cupcakes over to Jaylen. “Goodness, where are my manners?” she said. “I should have offered these to you first. How are you doing, my dear?”

Jaylen took a cupcake and looked around at all the teammates filling up her room. They were coming to say hi to her. Coming to check in on her. They were _worried_ about her.

They cared about her.

Her eyes filled with tears again.

“Happy,” she managed. “I’m happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks again to the Society for Internet Baseball Research and Reblase in particular.
> 
> ENORMOUS thanks to my partner for reading my work and making it way better.
> 
> And GIGANTIC thanks to all of you reading it!
> 
> EDIT: Okay, I finally listened to the garages' album Encore and HOLY CARP I am in love with it x10000000. The new title is a lyric from their song "new sparks for old friends" by zanterbird. Seriously, if you are a Jaylen fan, it's so ding dang good.


End file.
